9. Adair

Chapter 9

Adair

Like everything in Gloombringer Castle, breakfast was an ordeal.

Oatmeal wasn't something I despised in a general way, but the way Oberon ate it, it was more punishment than meal, and when I tried to add anything but the oats and water it came from the kitchen with, he looked at me like I was being some kind of unreasonable dilettante. How frivolous to add a banana to my oatmeal because I didn't like eating plain, unsalted, unsugared paste.

Titania wasn't there, which made matters even worse. At least she usually distracted from my banana by adding sugar and nuts and just...hells, anything she could lay a hand on. Sometimes I was surprised she didn't pour her whiskey on it.

This particular morning, I had more important things to worry about than Oberon's disapproving expression as I cut a banana into my morning punishment.

"I've been looking for some people," I told him, watching the banana instead of his face. I could see our bond from the corner of my eye, and it would tell me if anything went too terribly wrong, but I couldn't look him in the eye.

He scoffed. "Someone specific, or just people in general?"

"I was looking into Imri Sagara."

Absolutely no reaction in our bond, but physically, he paused. I glanced up at his face, unable to keep from doing it, however much I tried to stop myself.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

No hurt. No sadness. Not even a smile at the memory of a woman he'd supposedly once loved.

He'd simply frozen. "Why?"

"Frankly, because I'm worried about the future of Gloombringer. The future of the Summerlands as a whole." Yes, I'd been practicing that response since I'd started looking for the woman.

It didn't seem to make much difference. He waved a hand as though he could dismiss my concerns so easily. "She's not a part of the future. She's a part of the past."

"True," I agreed. I glanced to the silver tray in the middle of the table that held a dozen different topping options for the oatmeal. His reflection, though distorted, was visible in the gleaming metal. "Literally. She passed away earlier this year."

Nothing changed in the bond.

Not a twitch of the muscles in his face.

Nothing.

Like I'd told him it was going to rain this evening. Like the news, and she, were nothing.

He took a bite of oatmeal and swallowed it. Another. When I didn't continue speaking, he sighed and turned toward me. "And? "

Was that what his response would be when his sister died? When I died? Did no one and nothing at all truly matter to him? I continued staring at his oddly stretched reflection in the silver for another moment, then shook my head. Then I took the container of brown sugar and started dumping it onto my oatmeal.

I looked up at him as I dropped the second spoonful to find him scowling at my oatmeal as though it had personally wronged him.

"It seems she left a son behind," I told him, adding a third spoonful. Then I put the sugar down and grabbed a handful of pecans to add to the top.

"Good for him," he answered vaguely. "Are you eating breakfast or a candy bar?"

I lifted a brow and looked down at my perfectly respectable looking oatmeal. Actually, it was the best looking oatmeal I'd ever seen. "Candy bar? I don't see any chocolate or caramel available, so no candy bars, I'm afraid. The boy is twenty-one years old."

He continued looking at me as though I were discussing cake for breakfast and turned up his nose. "Food is fuel. There's no reason to eat that sort of thing unless you're a child."

"Fruit and nuts are healthy," I shot back. I didn't even know why. Why was I justifying eating a decently healthy breakfast to a man who had just heard that the only love of his life had died and hadn't even winced? There wasn't even a hint of pain in him. I'd known, I supposed, that this would be the reaction. It had been inevitable, and I knew Oberon too well to have expected better. But I'd hoped, just a little bit. And obligingly, as he always did, Oberon had dashed my hopes. "And I think the boy might be your son. The timing fits."

"You think she'd have hidden my son from me?" Once again, this was delivered like a comment on the weather or a local sports team, not a possible son whose entire childhood he'd missed.

"Yes."

That, for the first time, drew an actual reaction. Confusion. "Why? I have money. She didn't have anything. If she had my child, she should have demanded money."

"My understanding is that she never demanded anything from you during your relationship," I said, simple and to the point. "You wanted her, so she stayed; you told her to go, so she left. Why would she have contacted you about a child when there was no reason to presume you cared?"

He scrunched his whole face up like a child offered a meal of raw squid and brussels sprouts. "Cared? Of course I wouldn't have cared . What am I, a woman? A child?"

I blinked up at him, for a moment unable to look away. He truly thought men weren't allowed to care about things. Did he think we were all entirely unaffected by emotions the same way he was unaffected by the promise of decent food?

Or did he himself have no emotions?

Was it Verelle? Maybe being constantly exposed to the heart sapphire for over thirty years made one immune to emotions. Or worse, unable to have them.

That's not it , Rhodri said. You can't blame Verelle for her human being broken. She's as sad about it as anyone. Poor thing, stuck with a monster.

Somehow, that made it even worse. If it was a natural, albeit awful side effect of having magic connected to emotions for many years, it would at least be understandable .

If it was somehow being taken out on Verelle while she longed for more?

I didn't throw around terms like "abusive relationship" easily, but didn't it fit? Our stones were our responsibility. They bonded to us, and then we were their connection to the outside world. They weren't children, of course, as they came to us with their names and personalities already existing, unless they were entirely new to bonding. But in a way, the relationship was the same. They relied on us to help them relate to anyone else or teach them things about the world that they didn't understand.

They couldn't just go ask someone else for a second opinion if they felt like it; not just anyone could hear their song. We had to be there for them.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, considering adding more fruit to my oatmeal. Raspberries and strawberries and blueberries. I also considered leaving, just getting up and walking away, going to find an actual candy bar for breakfast. Chocolate and caramel sounded lovely.

Behind my closed eyelids, I could still see the vague idea of lines drawn out, centered around Oberon. Gray and red and more gray. Rhodri, helpful creature that she was, pointed out one thread. A tiny one, not because it was thin, but because it was short. It was quite thick, but only went as far as Oberon's breast pocket.

Verelle.

He didn't wear her in view, of course, because jewelry was for women, in his not-nearly-humble-enough opinion. So he kept the heart sapphire, a gem that had protected the Summerlands again and again, passed from generation to generation of his family, saved countless lives, hidden away, as though she were a shameful thing. So I'd never seen the bond before because it didn't stretch out from him, but only as far as his pocket.

The bond was a deep crimson-black. It was the ugliest, most awful relationship I'd ever seen in my life. Abusive wasn't even a strong enough descriptor. He and Verelle despised each other, completely.

My eyes snapped open, and still, I couldn't see anything but red-black-hate. I was going to dream of that nightmare of a relationship.

"Then clearly, Imri made the correct choice," I said, before taking a bite of my breakfast. For the first time in years, I enjoyed my oatmeal. "If you didn't care, then there was no reason to tell you. It didn't matter."

He narrowed his eyes at me, staring as he parsed the words, trying to decide whether I was being nonchalant or insulting.

I wondered...maybe Verelle was able to tell him how all the people around him felt, but would she? Did she care enough to tell him? Or maybe, did she think the world was better off if she didn't help him?

Had it always been so awful?

Couldn't have been , Rhodri denied. If she'd always hated him, she could have just refused to speak to him when he was a boy. No matter how sexist the previous Gloombringer was, he'd have left the family to Titania if she'd bonded the heart sapphire and he couldn't .

That was so. I only somewhat remembered Oberon's father, as he'd died when I was a teenager, but if anything, he'd seemed less hidebound and hateful toward women than his son was now. He'd always adored his daughter.

Apparently deciding that I cared as little as he did, Oberon shrugged and spoke up. "Then what does it matter now? I suppose that you think I have some responsibility to take this boy in? She left him impoverished, of course." He said that as though the boy being poor was the only possible reason I could have for bringing the subject up.

"You were just pointing out to your sister yesterday that you didn't have an heir," I pointed out.

He was silent for a moment, and his face had gone blank once more.

What the hells was wrong with the man, that it hadn't even occurred to him that having a son also meant having an heir? Whatever else was true, and however little emotion he was willing to feel, he did want an heir.

"This is because you think I'm dying," he said after a while.

I shrugged. "You think I'm wrong. Besides which, it doesn't matter what I think. It matters that you want an heir. If he's your son, then he's an heir. Who cares why I started looking for him?"

I half expected him to go into another rant about how "caring" was for girls and weaklings, and of course he didn't care . Then maybe he'd lift something heavy to prove what a big strong man he was, who clearly wasn't dying.

Instead, he took another bite of oatmeal, and after a while, nodded. "I suppose you're right. It doesn't matter, but it's not a terrible idea to have an heir waiting in the wings. If he truly is an heir."

"Do you have reason to believe she was unfaithful to you while you were together?" I cocked my head and watched him. I wasn't sure what I wanted the answer to be.

Well, no, I wanted the answer to be something entirely different from what it would be. I wanted him to confess he'd always loved her and cried himself to sleep over her loss for years, or at least something half as human as that.

What I got was basically what I expected.

"I couldn't say. People can't be trusted. She lost the duel, so who knows what kind of person she really was?"

Incredible. As though someone's ability to fight had a single fucking thing to do with their worth as a person. I kept my face calm and quirked a brow at him. "What was the duel about?"

His silence said all I needed to know. He didn't even fucking remember. She'd lost an eye and a duel, and he'd excised her from his life without a backward glance. He didn't even remember why she'd lost that eye. I had little doubt that not a day had gone by in the last half of her life where she hadn't thought about that duel. About how it had destroyed her life.

She'd have been able to answer me in an instant, however insignificant the origin of the disagreement had been.

"We'll have his genes tested," I said, turning back to my breakfast. There was no further purpose to the conversation. Oberon wasn't going to start giving a fuck about anyone but himself, and I wasn't going to stop. The important thing was that assuming Aubrey Sagara was truly his son, Oberon was going to give me what I wanted: the promise that the Gloombringer line wasn't going to crumble and leave a gaping hole in its place, with no one to help run a quarter of the fucking Summerlands. Good manners dictated that if Aubrey was his son, Oberon take him in, and that was all he cared about: looking like he was a decent person and a good leader.

It didn't matter that he was neither of those things. I could use the rules of etiquette to make him act like he was .

He didn't answer, but after a moment, humphed and nodded, albeit a bit grumpily.

And I ate my fruit, nuts, and sugar with relish.

Maybe I'd even start taking my breakfast alone, in my own quarters, if Aubrey was Oberon's son and moved into the castle. He could replace me at the Gloombringer's side.

What a beautiful vision of the future, however unlikely. I'd never leave someone alone to that misery.